Video: Bill O’Reilly and I yell at each other about weed, Part II

posted at 9:51 pm on January 13, 2014 by Mary Katharine Ham

The funny thing about these exchanges is marijuana legalization isn’t even a top issue for me, but I will do battle to defend the right of more than half the country to reasonably hold that position without being accused of being potheads and infant pot-smoking advocates. I just feel the real and social costs of prohibition are huge (hundreds of billions in taxpayer money), the Drug War has been a failure (80 percent of Americans agree), we should think about other strategies for non violent drug offenders than jail (80 percent of those polled in Texas agree) and the states are meant to be laboratories of democracy, and will function as such on this issue. I do not deny downsides and dangers exist and am in full agreement about wanting to keep it away from children. The Drug War hasn’t been great at doing that. I’m not personally a big fan of weed, but I do think, though they can be abused, adults can enjoy both marijuana and alcohol in moderation and still be perfectly healthy, productive people.

I wish I had mentioned this this, too, which I’ve mentioned in other O’Reilly segments on this subject. The social cost of marijuana arrests —1.5 million drug arrests, almost half for marijuana, and the vast majority of those for possession only—do fall disproportionately on minority populations even though white people use the drug at the same rate. Incarceration does happen, and the cost can be devastating, and the punishments desperately unfair.

And, hey, good point, Guy (who describes himself as between Bill and me on the issue):

And I'm hazy on BOR's practical position. He's fine with adults using pot, but not kids? Isn't that…pro-legalization? @mkhammer

In good news, I have been upgraded from “babbling” to “pettifogging” by Bill. As The Right Scoop notes, no matter which side you’re on, you’ll probably enjoy the fireworks. I’m totally comfortable with disagreement and with reassessing as we watch Colorado and Washington, though my Twitter stream again suggests there are a lot of conservatives who lean libertarian on this issue. Click to watch. Updated with YouTube video:

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I wish I had mentioned this this, too, which I’ve mentioned in other O’Reilly segments on this subject. The social cost of marijuana arrests —1.5 million drug arrests, almost half for marijuana, and the vast majority of those for possession only—do fall disproportionately on minority populations even though white people use the drug at the same rate. Incarceration does happen, and the cost can be devastating, and the punishments desperately unfair.

So all of the data cited in this post is from an ACLU study that is about a year old now and that conservatives either ignored or boo hoo’d as flawed. I am happy to see it has migrated to the right. The data presented is undeniable. Unfortunately MKH, *had* you mentioned it, O’Reilly would have accused you of being a race hustler. Because pointing out factual evidence of racial disparities is akin to “exploiting” people of color by…pointing out racial disparities or something. Brava, you did great (and your hair is fierce).

My position on drugs is that they are, the drug laws aren’t working, and that more damage net is being done by their continuation on the books than would be done by withdrawing them from the books.”

So simple, so easy. Progressive and lefty Democrats like Bella Abzug have been making this argument since the Nixon Administration. Sure would’ve been nice if the right had caught on earlier, instead of demonizing “dopers” for political gain.

Sorry but I’m with Bill with this one on. MKH you kept talking about legalization but I think what Bill was talking about social. What he was saying is that if you make it legal….you make it more socially acceptable. A fair point and you went off on him.

So simple, so easy. Progressive and lefty Democrats like Bella Abzug have been making this argument since the Nixon Administration. Sure would’ve been nice if the right had caught on earlier, instead of demonizing “dopers” for political gain.

Good for you, O’Reilly is a potent force to be dealt with and you “hammered” him with your views and didn’t back off. He’s been on a fire and brimstone rant on legalization lately, and while I can listen to his guests talk about the subject, he just gets a little too righteous to tolerate sometimes and I have to switch channels. He really irks me when he trivializes other peoples point of view instead of validating them and agreeing to disagree.

What is BOR even trying to say? He said he doesn’t want to bother adults, which is basically MKHs position. It seems that his only point is that if adults aren’t given a hard time about pot, children will think it is cool.

… That may even be true, on the margins, but going from that reasonable-ish remark to banning it is a bridge too far.

I wish I had mentioned this this, too, which I’ve mentioned in other O’Reilly segments on this subject. The social cost of marijuana arrests —1.5 million drug arrests, almost half for marijuana, and the vast majority of those for possession only—do fall disproportionately on minority populations even though white people use the drug at the same rate.

My position on drugs is that they are, the drug laws aren’t working, and that more damage net is being done by their continuation on the books than would be done by withdrawing them from the books.”

So simple, so easy. Progressive and lefty Democrats like Bella Abzug have been making this argument since the Nixon Administration. Sure would’ve been nice if the right had caught on earlier, instead of demonizing “dopers” for political gain.

libfreeordie on January 13, 2014 at 10:13 PM

What “political gain” did they get? Nixon resigned, Ford was a fill-in…and besides,, the dopers were not all sent to jail by the Feds; there were and still are state laws. F-

My ex-husband did weed for 5 years(he quit before we met) and though he managed to graduate from high school w/ honors-he refered to those 5 years as ‘the lost years’. He said that weed robbed him of his motivation. he wanted to work and smoke weed-nothing else.
My brother the dopehead Naderite is-as much as I’m loathe to admit-brilliant…and a mope.
I blame his addiction to Ms. Mary Jane partially for that.
Count me FIRMLY in the do NOT decriminalize camp.

Question: what does “success” look like? And what’s more — does it matter? Has the “war on murder” or “war on rape” or “war on theft” been won? If we’re going to say that continued incidence of violations is cause for eliminating a law, then prepare for anarchy.

Compliance with law does not determine the validity or merits of law. Rather, the law proscribes a set of acceptable behavior, and when one’s behavior is discovered to fall outside those bounds, it provides for punitive measures.

MKH seems in the habit of advocating whatever liberals want. It’s like she wants to be accepted by them and seen as cool, more than anything.

Now, I can respect and understand the pro-drug legalization POV, though I disagree with it and believe legalization will result in many more problems and more drug use, especially among young people.

But Mary Katherine Ham is also pro-amnesty, though she has only had the guts to admit to this in passing, that I’ve seen, and she’s pro-gay marriage, apparently. She disagreed with Phil Robertson and favors the Establishment over Tea Party conservatives.

I never see her taking any strong stands on anything in a way that would upset liberals or Establishment types.

Michelle Malkin she ain’t.

I know this is comment is going to seem rude, but I would just like to see an actual conservative (with passion!) hired next at this site.

My ex-husband did weed for 5 years(he quit before we met) and though he managed to graduate from high school w/ honors-he refered to those 5 years as ‘the lost years’. He said that weed robbed him of his motivation. he wanted to work and smoke weed-nothing else.
My brother the dopehead Naderite is-as much as I’m loathe to admit-brilliant…and a mope.
I blame his addiction to Ms. Mary Jane partially for that.
Count me FIRMLY in the do NOT decriminalize camp.
annoyinglittletwerp on January 13, 2014 at 10:23 PM

Have family members with nearly the same experiences. I concur with all you said here.

Bill made a great point which Mary ignored. Junior High School kids and older were all smoking cigarettes when it was the cool counter culture thing to do. Switch out that addictive stimulant for a unhealthy analgesic and the young class becomes zombified losers. What a great triumph for America.

Question: what does “success” look like? And what’s more — does it matter? Has the “war on murder” or “war on rape” or “war on theft” been won? If we’re going to say that continued incidence of violations is cause for eliminating a law, then prepare for anarchy.

Compliance with law does not determine the validity or merits of law. Rather, the law proscribes a set of acceptable behavior, and when one’s behavior is discovered to fall outside those bounds, it provides for punitive measures.

Stoic Patriot on January 13, 2014 at 10:24 PM

Excellent comment.

What is more troubling is the pathological need for people to hide from reality whether it be drugs or alcohol. Why is this? And why are we ceding this ground.

As a health care worker, marijuana is not the easy, quiet drug that people think it is. The propaganda has been masterful.

One question to ask is “why do our “leaders” find it acceptable to give in to the drug propagandists?” Will a drugged and disinterested population be easier to control?

It certainly isn’t the cost factor, as when have we seen government be concerned or behave in a fiscally responsible manner?

You were terrific. I loved the part where you defended your child from being casually and gratuitously dragged into a national conversation. And, of course, BOR’s position of “adults can do what they want in their own homes, but no legalization” is incoherent and nonsensical.

I hesitate to say one more thing, but I will. I find men who are all about “protecting the children” creepy and scary. It’s as if they have some dark, evil tendency within them that they are terrified of, and it comes out in being overzealous about “the children.”

Certainly nobody is in favor of a ten-year-old smoking weed (well, most people). But for fifteen, sixteen-year-old’s of my generation, location, and cultural background, it was a rite of passage. Proportionately, it didn’t hurt us any more than that first drink hurt others of a different generation and time.

But the way BOR presents it, they are innocents for whom “the pusher” (itself an odd and misguided notion) paves the way for that first step to hell and damnation. The BORs are disturbing.

Conservatives/Libertarians are falling into a liberal trap regarding the legalization of drugs, including weed.

MKH seems to forget that States and the Federal Government are already looking for reasons to take control away from parents regarding their children. I mean, why do you think doctors and school counselors are asking children whether their parents own guns? What kind of keeps this tempered is we have a Second Amendment and the momentum seems to be with gun owners at this time.

Whereas, with drugs, there’s no Amendment–there are only laws that can be changed every few years if voters decide so. So, when it comes to Government getting involved with how you parent your kids, it will have free reign to question your parenting abilities if you are a parent who does drugs–weed or the harder ones–even if they’re legal. Right now, since illicit drugs are illegal in most places, parents giving their children drugs isn’t a high Government priority.

However, if weed is legal, that will change–it will become a top priority. It will give Government another avenue to worm its way into your life. Why? Because Government wants control of your children. And it’s dying to find a way to discredit you whether you’re slipping your child a joint or not.

Remember, the War On Drugs only looks bad because we don’t know anything else. It will look like a snowball fight compared to when the Government starts swooping in to figure out if you’re giving your kids legal weed or not. Then, you’ll wish the War On Drugs was taking place outside your home’s walls and not inside them.

Freedom means people will do things you don’t like, just like you do things they don’t like, and can’t do anything about. What irks me about this all, lawyers are going to benefit. All the new laws, regulations, slights, perceived harm, and how someone who’s not getting stoned needs to pay for it all.

However, I find it terribly funny, the Cartels are ticked off and there is worry for the legal pot shops.

Mary Katharine not only is right on this issue but I applaud her even more for standing ground and firing all guns at the obstreperous O’Baxter. The girl don’t put up with bullshit, gotta love that. Plus, while she is captivating even in plain clothes and without makeup and all, she is absolutely stunning in this little black number tonight and all made up, her husband a lucky, lucky hombre.

Sorry but I’m with Bill with this one on. MKH you kept talking about legalization but I think what Bill was talking about social. What he was saying is that if you make it legal….you make it more socially acceptable. A fair point and you went off on him.

terryannonline on January 13, 2014 at 10:15 PM

While I do deplore the drug culture, current drug laws haven’t done much to make them socially unacceptable, if anything marijuana has become more acceptable in some sections because it is illegal. At this point I think we have two options: ramp it up including stronger enforcement and more spending, which will not be popular and might fail anyway, or end the Drug War all together. I think the real problem is the break down of the family and poor parenting, not the legal status of drugs.

I know this is comment is going to seem rude, but I would just like to see an actual conservative (with passion!) hired next at this site.

bluegill on January 13, 2014 at 10:26 PM

As MKH said, Bill Buckley supported the legalization of drugs. I’d like to see an argument that he wasn’t a conservative.

O’Reilly has never been more correct. The problem with the Millenials is that they sincerely think they know better than anyone else. Their liberal views & need for tolerance on every issue regardless of history & consequences. In the 60s when you went to prison for pot, our group barely into our teens gathered for a toke or two on on occasion. We drank @ 17 & sneaked our parents cigarettes @ 12. In the 80s Illinois lowered age from 21 to 18 for beer & wine. There was so many accidents & deaths, the law was reversed in less than two years. Colorado is making available a drug to the under age, immature, habitual abuser & an open door for crime & the cartel. Worse than the drug, is this out of control permissiveness where everything’s fine in moderation.

Hahaha. You know, it’s funny too because I like Ozzy and he probably managed to maintain more artistic moxie for longer than most of the dope smokers. Think of all the great musical artistry in the 60′s and 70′s and how many of those artists can still create anything worth listening to? Compare that to Haydn who was creating great art into his 70′s, or Beethoven who was older than fifty when he composed the 9th Symphony and 32nd piano concerto.

Most incarcerations in which possession is the charge are lesser includeds. Many are as a result of repeated VOP’s, and rarely does anyone charged only with possession CDS marijuana spend more than the time it takes to get bonded out, actually in a jail cell.

“The drug war” as a thing, is undefinable. There are few marijuana task forces; i.e. police units that spend the majority of their time investigating and taking out distributors of pot, only. That weed is the most popular illegal drug, and the one that is often the plea bargain deal for charges that include intent to distribute, possession CDS other than marijuana and others, does not mean that the government is spending all this money to disrupt the stoner that needs to smoke a joint every night in order to sleep or deal with the stresses of his otherwise crappy life.

As for blacks being disproportionately affected: That’s because most drugs originate (at the street level) in urban areas and flow outward. Police action is meant to interdict that flow. Attacking the end user, as so many falsely attribute to “the drug war”, is not the approach law enforcement is taking. So, since drugs originate in areas where the majority of the population -especially the gang population- is black or Hispanic, it’s not a surprise that the majority of arrests are among blacks and Hispanics.

Comparing weed to alcohol isn’t apples and apples. Someone can enjoy a glass of wine with dinner and not acquire a buzz. But who smokes weed for any other purpose? No one lights a plant on fire and breathes it just to warm up. Or because it tastes good. Or because it satisfies thirst or hunger. They breathe fire to get high. Which makes the user no different from an intent standpoint, than someone using cocaine, crack or heroin.

Finally, legalization is not a libertarian windfall. Government will -and has grown wherever marijuana has been legalized, either for the totally false “medicinal” purposes, or in the newest massively liberal states of Colorado and Washington. Finding a new product to tax and regulate is not a libertarian position, its a progressive position.

BOR can be an intelligent bloviator from time to time but he’s wrong on this issue.

Legalization will save us buttloads of money in interdiction costs and create taxable income that we need to pay off a lot of this debt we’ve incurred over the last few generations.

It’s relatively harmless as a drug and people are getting incarcerated for it and being turned into lepers in society such that they have no recourse but to be criminal just to get by.

It’s safer than alcohol, that much is for sure. I have never been so buzzed from a joint that I couldn’t drive, meaning that my vision was so blurry, and my balance so off kilter, that I couldn’t drive.

There is an argument against legalization of Pot, and O’Reilly didn’t even bother making it. Focusing on MKH’s child and kids breaking the law isn’t an argument. It would have been more legit, if O’Reilly argued that Pot is a gateway drug, impairs judgment (even in small doses), causes brain damage, and causes major social problems.

The real argument is whether a casual pot smoker can be a productive member of society and be responsible.

In addition I think that Bill is being a total jerk. Exchanges like this show that despite his success, he is a total classless guy. Bill doesn’t respect those who do not agree with him 100% on every issue.

If the war on drugs had been a success, we would not have one of the highest rates of consumption of illegal drugs in the world and the highest percentage of the population incarcerated of the Western world. Jailing people for consumption of drugs seems to have had the opposite effect. Insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.

Probably what’s most humorous is the Bill O’Reilly (BOR) thinks that because it’s his show that he’s always right yet he seems totally clueless to the fact that Mary Katherine Ham (MKH) is in fact answering his questions fully and is in fact OWNING him on his own show. She is NOT advocating for kids to use it. She is RIGHT that the War on Drugs is excessively expensive and a failure. ALL MKH is saying IMO is that making pot illegal causes more problems than it solves, just as prohibition did with alcohol. Neither she or I advocate for anyone to use pot or alcohol in excess but making it illegal to use any of those two merely creates a enforcement burden so high it offsets the cost of simply making it legal and making some tax revenue off it. It’s simply a lesser evil IMO to make it legal.

I haven’t watch BOR remotely regularly in a long time but as I turned off my PS3 today and tuned into my TV I just happened to catch this segment and BOR is outright insulting to MKH. Bless her she maintained her cool but her eyes seemed to indicate she wanted to choke him at times… or at least I wanted to if nothing else. LOL!

LMAO “Are you a Lady of Temperance Bill?” and “I look forward to the studies – which you do not have yet”

ebrawer on January 13, 2014 at 10:17 PM

Good thing I didn’t have a drink in my mouth when she said that or I’d have sprayed it all over my screen.

Unfortunately, we haven’t really been fighting to win in the war on drugs.

Bigbullets on January 13, 2014 at 10:28 PM

Pray tell, how should we fight it to win? The war on drugs is at my front door just for cold medicine. In their infinite wisdom, in 2006 the legislators of Oregon voted to require a prescription to buy sudafed in addition to the Fed ID/purchase limit laws. All to cut down on local meth labs using it to make meth. Meth is still available in the state but I have to spend $100+ to get some damn cold medicine. I don’t smoke pot, drink much or any “hard core” drugs but I’m a potential criminal who needs to hand over ID plus a doctor’s visit to deal with a cold/sinus headache. Its probably easier for me to buy pot than get sudafed.

My ex-husband did weed for 5 years(he quit before we met) and though he managed to graduate from high school w/ honors-he refered to those 5 years as ‘the lost years’. He said that weed robbed him of his motivation. he wanted to work and smoke weed-nothing else.
My brother the dopehead Naderite is-as much as I’m loathe to admit-brilliant…and a mope.
I blame his addiction to Ms. Mary Jane partially for that.
Count me FIRMLY in the do NOT decriminalize camp.

annoyinglittletwerp on January 13, 2014 at 10:23 PM

So, you’re saying your ex-husband and your brother should have done time on the inside.

The war on drugs is at my front door just for cold medicine. In their infinite wisdom, in 2006 the legislators of Oregon voted to require a prescription to buy sudafed in addition to the Fed ID/purchase limit laws. All to cut down on local meth labs using it to make meth. Meth is still available in the state but I have to spend $100+ to get some damn cold medicine. I don’t smoke pot, drink much or any “hard core” drugs but I’m a potential criminal who needs to hand over ID plus a doctor’s visit to deal with a cold/sinus headache. Its probably easier for me to buy pot than get sudafed.

oryguncon on January 14, 2014 at 12:24 AM

It’s also like that in Georgia. You have to fill out several pages of paperwork just to get common cold medications. By the time you get done with the paperwork your cold will be gone, but you will have a massive headache.

It’s also like that in Georgia. You have to fill out several pages of paperwork just to get common cold medications. By the time you get done with the paperwork your cold will be gone, but you will have a massive headache.

midgeorgian on January 14, 2014 at 12:40 AM

I think you can get it in certain forms easier because those forms the meth makers can’t use to make meth so they aren’t a problem. Maybe it’s pill or capsule form. You might want to look into that.

I’m afraid you’re correct — she did not comport herself well here at all… she almost always shines, but not tonight.

Saw the whole interview.

O’Reilly is a pompous blowhard, but he’s right on this one. MKH can selectively channel dead conservatives and opine misleadingly on the scourge of prison costs all she wants, but on this issue, I’m afraid her POV is part of the problem… and if she thinks we need a study yet-to-be-fielded to validate either side of this argument, she’s ignorant of history. Lastly, like it or not, O’Reilly was well within his rights to question her as a “mother” since his entire thesis was predicated on the effects of legalization on children — a point MKH seemed bent on ignoring when it suited her.

I do not deny downsides and dangers exist and am in full agreement about wanting to keep it away from children. The Drug War hasn’t been great at doing that.

I also don’t believe in drugs. For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn’t do that kind of business. Somebody comes to them and says, “I have powders; if you put up three, four thousand dollar investment – we can make fifty thousand distributing.” So they can’t resist. I want to control it as a business, to keep it respectable. I don’t want it near schools – I don’t want it sold to children!

So the people who have no problem buying marijuana illegally are suddenly going to become law-abiding citizens who only buy from approved sellers? They’re not going to go with the cheapest and easiest way to get what they want? They’ll be so concerned that the state receive its share of the tax money from their purchase that they pay a higher price/drive however far necessary to see that that happens?

And the people who have been selling illegally are just going to stop? Just like that? There won’t need to be harsh penalties to shut down illegal sales and a whole host of new laws regarding what constitutes a legal sale/what happens to violators?

And legalizing a single drug is going to seriously hinder the drug trade and end the War on Drugs? Because legal marijuana will suddenly trump illegal everything else in terms of desirability?

Good look with that.

I think things will get worse, not better–including with the discrepancies between who gets punished and who doesn’t. Sure, the wealthier weed-loving folk will be able to pay the higher prices for the legal version of the drug and avoid breaking laws. But the poor? The people who live in a dealer’s neighborhood who think it makes no sense to pay money they don’t have for something they can get on the cheap from the guy down the street? (Or who possibly have to get from him or else suffer his wrath?) Will there be no repercussions at all for buying marijuana illegally? If that is the case, I don’t see how legit sales will compete–unless law enforcement officials go all-in in their efforts to shut down illegal sellers…which I suppose could technically be called something other than a “War on Drugs”…but I don’t see how it does all that much to improve the law-related issues the we’re-just-wasting-money-fighting-drugs crowd like to raise. And if people are going to be punished for buying marijuana illegally, then the state will, in effect, be punishing the poor for being too poor to pay for a privilege the rich can easily legally afford. Talk about unfair…

And one more thing…I see the same people trying to make their pro-legal-marijuana case by pointing out the tax benefits and the freedom-from-government-involvement benefits. How is that supposed to work? Either we have a marijuana free-for-all–where anything goes, no one is punished, and only people dumb enough to pay full price contribute any taxes for their purchases, or else we have a highly regulated marijuana market with fairly harsh penalties for outside purchases (to compensate for the super-appealing much lower black market prices) and even harsher penalties for illegal sellers (probably including some kind of tax evasion charges for good measure). You can’t have it both ways–unless your answers to all the questions I asked at the beginning of this post is a resounding (and hopelessly naive) “Yes!” In which case I say again…good luck with that.

I will gladly support your efforts, MKH, once drug users are barred from receiving any kind of public assistance. If you think we’re throwing away money on the drug war, wait until you see how much more we can throw away on EBT cards.

So simple, so easy. Progressive and lefty Democrats like Bella Abzug have been making this argument since the Nixon Administration. Sure would’ve been nice if the right had caught on earlier, instead of demonizing “dopers” for political gain.
libfreeordie on January 13, 2014 at 10:13 PM

At it’s core, the argument over the legalization of marijuana comes down to this: Should the government be able to regulate the consensual private conduct of adults?

myiq2xu on January 14, 2014 at 1:34 AM

.
Should adult citizens be allowed to use a mind altering chemical, for the pure, unadulterated purpose of ‘pleasure,’ in spite of it’s incapacitating properties?
.
If users can reasonably assure all other persons around them, that their use of mind altering chemicals, will NOT spill out into the local neighborhood, or require calls to the police for an “mentally incapacitated person” that is misbehaving in public, due to being high on mind altering chemicals, then GO FOR IT.

So the people who have no problem buying marijuana illegally are suddenly going to become law-abiding citizens who only buy from approved sellers? They’re not going to go with the cheapest and easiest way to get what they want? They’ll be so concerned that the state receive its share of the tax money from their purchase that they pay a higher price/drive however far necessary to see that that happens?

In Los Angeles, we have a liquor store on just about every other corner. These stores charge as much as 50% more for liquor than the supermarkets and pharmacies do. Why are they still in business? If it were as simple as price, LA wouldn’t be supporting as many liquor stores as it does.

What you’re not factoring in your argument is convenience. Dealing with pot dealers is a pain in the ass. The product pot dealers sell isn’t as good as the product dispensaries sell. It’s less fresh, poorly cultivated, and there’s no guarantee what’s in it.

CA has already disproved this point rather handily. In CA, you have to get a doctor’s prescription to go to a dispensary. Guess what? Every pot smoker I know has a doctor’s prescription and pays 400% more at a dispensary because the weed is better, and dealing with dealers sucks.

Compliance with law does not determine the validity or merits of law. Rather, the law proscribes a set of acceptable behavior, and when one’s behavior is discovered to fall outside those bounds, it provides for punitive measures.

Stoic Patriot on January 13, 2014 at 10:24 PM

So where do you stop? Should we accept criminalization of home schooling? Criminalization of abortion protests? The whole idea of conservatism is that the federal law should be bound by the powers given it by the constitution. By that measure, if criminalization of drugs is to happen at all, it is a power reserved to the states. Though I’m not necessarily against criminalizing pot on principle, it is just another in a long line of ways in which FedGov has overstepped its constitutional bounds in the last 101 years.

Should adult citizens be allowed to use a mind altering chemical, for the pure, unadulterated purpose of ‘pleasure,’ in spite of it’s incapacitating properties?
.
If users can reasonably assure all other persons around them, that their use of mind altering chemicals, will NOT spill out into the local neighborhood, or require calls to the police for an “mentally incapacitated person” that is misbehaving in public, due to being high on mind altering chemicals, then GO FOR IT.

listens2glenn on January 14, 2014 at 2:37 AM

That sounds like an argument for banning alcohol and cigarettes. One of those has been tried, the other hasn’t. I’d think you of all people would have a little more intellectual consistency in your argument than to paint with such a wide brush as decrying “mind-altering substances.”

If you watch “The Five” you’ll know that Bob Beckel is a recovering alcoholic & addict. So am I! One of the few areas that we agree is that marijuana is a “gateway drug!” I have a nephew that started smoking pot at 8 years of age, by 14 he was growing and selling it. We buried him in September, age 33, from a heroin overdose. I’m sure I can find many, many more stories just like that. I’ll bet that you would be hard pressed to find a habitual drug abuser that didn’t start with pot!

If you watch “The Five” you’ll know that Bob Beckel is a recovering alcoholic & addict. So am I! One of the few areas that we agree is that marijuana is a “gateway drug!” I have a nephew that started smoking pot at 8 years of age, by 14 he was growing and selling it. We buried him in September, age 33, from a heroin overdose. I’m sure I can find many, many more stories just like that. I’ll bet that you would be hard pressed to find a habitual drug abuser that didn’t start with pot!

Boats48 on January 14, 2014 at 5:27 AM

Again, I have to call this out. You know what else are gateway drugs? Alcohol and cigarettes. Both legal. I’m curious to know what percentage of documented drug overdose deaths happened in people that never drank or smoked. That’d be really interesting, I think.

Besides, these people are sitting around smoking grass in public.
Try that with alcohol or cigarettes and see what happens.
Sherman1864 on January 14, 2014 at 4:29 AM

Get real Sherman.
Alcohol use is not banned in public, or in private, consumption it is regulated by municipalities and states. The O’Reilly’s of the world once try to ban booze too.
And cigarettes used to be used anywhere and everywhere.
The same regulations will inevitably be placed on pot.